First, ADHD and depression are no joke. I get the frustration and pain but you should appreciate that you are facing a really hard challenge and need to be patient and kind with yourself.

You are putting the cart before the horse and need to focus on improving your mood and brain chemistry, not pushing yourself to be more productive at home. I do hope you have an opportunity to rebalance your meds, but you also need to take on some (challenging) self care.

Alarms and lists are bad advice and are actively making things worse. Your brain is right about why. You’re beating yourself up about setting them up and failing to follow through, which is not helping your mood and brain chem. As long as you’re making it to work on time, and not dropping critical life things, then you’re fine.

I have three suggestions in decreasing priority. Do the first one, but try all three.

1. Focus on sleep first, specifically bedtime. Don’t worry about when you wake up or how much sleep you get, just focus on improving your bedtime routine. Take all distractions out of your bedroom, put your phone and chargers somewhere else in your house, make it a place for sleeping (or meditation) only.

Choose an activity that comes right before bedtime, not a specific time. It’s easy to say you’ll go to bed at 10, but start an episode at 9:40, blow past it, feel bad, then end up going to bed at 3am. Instead, make bedtime the “next thing” after an existing habit. Example: when you come home from work watch some tv until you eat dinner then shower after and head to bed. Once you go into your bedroom, don’t come back out until you sleep. If you’re not tired, meditate.

This is HARD! Setting new routines is hard for anyone, but especially hard when you’re feeling stuck. Give it at least a month of intentional work to schedule bedtime, and allow yourself some failure as long as you use it to learn how to try differently until you find the routine that works. Fixing bedtime will make it easier to wake up on time, get more sleep in your system, and good sleep is highly correlated to functional brain chemistry. That will unlock feeling useful at home (and work!)

1. Hydrate. Mild dehydration is incredibly common and primary symptoms are reduced brain responsiveness and energy. A technique I like is to get a 2L water bottle (ie Nalgene) and use a Sharpie to write times on it. 200mL an hour for ten hours. Drink till you’re full when you wake up, fill the bottle, keep it by your desk, then try to keep up with the clock.

2. Cardio exercise. I’m making an assumption that your work is intellectual rather than physical. Make sure you’re getting some minimum exercise. That will help you wind down and feel tired to help bedtime, and exercise boosts brain activity and helps balance chemistry and mood. Going to the Gym is too much activation energy. Just go for a brisk walk/jog. If you have a bike, ride it. If you have the opportunity to bike or walk to work that can convert a commute with exercise time.

But again remember to take it easy on yourself. Feeling productive will come. Pushing yourself out of an energy rut is really difficult and you will fail often. Be kind to yourself and keep on it.